Göbl does not attest this bust for this reverse, but he certainly attests the reverse, and the bust for many contemporary issues from this mint. There's a place for it in the attribution grid, and without going hunting in obscure catalogs, this is a coin that's expected, but not elsewhere recorded.

To imagine that it's really unknown, or unique, would be to ignore how little attention is paid to the pedestrian, even ugly, coins of this reign.

The animals drawing the carpentum here are stated to be mules, i think, because mules were commonly used for this, rather than because these look identifiably different from horses. A mule advocate speaks.

The reverse legend here, a bit different than that in the catalogs I have, notes that Ephesus is thrice Neokorate (it has three temples of the imperial cult), a fact not mentioned on any other Ephesian coin I own.

Information relating the carpentum to Irish war chariots here, and information on Roman wheeled vehicles here.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Fascination with, and concentration on, minutiae characterizes the collector as perhaps nothing else does. This coin is special because the horse appears to fly in space, since the line of the ground, as seen on this example, has been omitted.

I recently acquired this example, with a cuirassed bust, from a different reverse die, but sharing the odd mismatch between legend and figure, unremarked by Göbl when he used a photograph of this coin.

This coin, a little more investigation shows, was auctioned in Milan in 1957 as part of the Mazzini collection.

That there are two dies with the same error suggests to me something other than mistakes of carelessness. I speculate that two (or more) Felicitas dies were finished by the engraver responsible for the figure, but that the engraver responsible for the legend didn't get to them until the FELICIT PVBL issue was declared complete and the SECVRIT ORBIS issue begun. Whether by order or inspiration, someone decided it was better to use them, incorrect figure and all, than to discard them and begin again.

It is just speculation, and can't be proven or disproven, but I think it's a fascinating glimpse into the little-documented day-to-day operation of a Roman mint, some 1,750 years ago.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

KOPNHΛIA CAΛωNEINA CEB, Diademed draped bust right | LIΔ, Tyche standing facing, head left, holding rudder left and cornucopia right. Palm in right field, regnal year in left field.

First, a whine about transcribing ancient Greek legends for HTML. A modern upper case Omega is Ω and lower case is ω. At the time this coin was minted, in Alexandria (and some other cities), fashion dictated an upper case Omega shaped like a larger ω. I know of no practical way to form such a letter in HTML, and no better dodge than to use the lower-case letter, ugly as that works out.